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the f-word; did you just call me a f… ? “Learning to lead requires learning to follow.” — J.J. Rousseau O            ur SAT team was working a case involving a pair of armed robbers.    It was midday, and we had already grabbed one of the bad guys. Two members of our team were on their way to centra...

the f-word; did you just call me a f… ? “Learning to lead requires learning to follow.” — J.J. Rousseau O            ur SAT team was working a case involving a pair of armed robbers.    It was midday, and we had already grabbed one of the bad guys. Two members of our team were on their way to central processing with him. The rest of the team was already on their way to set up surveillance on a townhouse in Germantown. Shortly after getting there, our second bad guy was observed walking into the townhouse. I took a quick drive-by to see the target. It looked to be a two-story townhouse, with no apparent activity going on inside. I pressed the plunger mic to activate our encrypted radio channel. “Okay, this is going to be an early day, let’s gear up and go get him.” After getting acknowledgments from each team member, I heard my Nextel phone chirp. It was Paul saying, “Hey, Eddie, you gotta minute to meet up before we do this?” I engaged the radio mic again and told everyone to stand by for a few minutes while I met up with Paul. Paul arrived and found me in the parking lot a short distance away from the target house. Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 66 “Eddie, what are your thoughts on this guy?” Paul asked. “Well, I think our guy is inside a two-story townhouse. We’re going to have some tactical fun and go get him. Then we’re going to call it a day, a little reward for a job well done. Why do you ask?” I was interested in Paul’s opinion. You see, I had hired Paul, selected him among a pool of other well-qualified candidates for our team. I did this despite the fact that he had been a bit of a jerk the first time I met him. When I was a recruit in our police academy, Paul had graduated from the academy a year prior to me and had volunteered to come back as one of the drinkers so we could practice our standard field sobriety tests, or SFSTs, during the practical application portion of our DUI training. Let’s just say he was not a nice drunk. But that was in the past. Since then, he had earned a position on the decentralized SWAT team. It wasn’t long before he was then selected to be a member of our full-time SWAT team. He later became the senior SWAT sniper, a coveted position, to say the least. So why did the senior SWAT sniper end up on our Special Assignment Team? I remember asking him the same question during the interview process, “Why do you want to leave SWAT and come to SAT?” His answer surprised me, “I want to get back to doing real police work again.” He clarified by explaining that yes, SWAT work was fun and exciting, but he no longer felt challenged. He wanted to do investigations, develop informants, make his own cases. SWAT was always cleaning up for other units, but not doing proactive police work. He missed the hunt and the chase. His answer sold me, and despite my memory of his drunken self berating me and the rest of my academy class, I hired him. A few months later, I found myself in a parking lot in Germantown, listening to him, the newest member of our team, tell me how I was making the wrong call. Shit. Followership Imagine your child coming home from school one day, walking through the front door, yelling, “Mom! Dad! Look what I got at school!” You greet them and see a huge smile on their face, and notice they are holding a certificate with a gold seal and a blue ribbon on it. “Wow, what’s that?” you ask. The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 67 “It’s an award; the teacher said I earned it today.” “What’s the award for?” “It says I was the Best Follower in Class!” What would your reaction be? Would you jump for joy and celebrate your child’s award for being the best follower? If you don’t have children, imagine being young again and presenting the same award to your parents. How would they react? I’ve presented this same scenario to thousands of people. Most parents, if they are honest, say something such as, “I’d want to know why they got an award for being a follower? I want them to get an award for being a leader!” I even had one person say, jokingly, I hope, “I’d wash their mouth out with soap,” as if their child dropped the other F word. The word follower or followership, in many households and most organizations, is treated as profanity. I’ve even had someone ask, “Is followership really a word, or did you make it up?” As this is being written, in 2020, I conducted a search of the word “followership” on Google. The result was 1,530,000 hits. I then conducted a search of the word “leadership,” and the almighty search engine returned 2,920,000,000 hits. In other words, people search for the term followership way less than 1% of the time that leadership is searched.23 So, why is followership considered the ugly duckling to leadership? Dr. Robert Kelley wrote the seminal work on followership, aptly titled The Power of Followership.24 In his book, he describes a common conversation he has whenever discussing his work. “A friend, a stranger sitting next to me on a plane, an executive, or journalist will ask, ‘What are you working on?’ ‘Followership,’ I say. ‘What? Run that by me again?’ ‘Followership - the flip side of leadership.’ I explain. ‘Oh, you mean the people who need to be told what to do. The sheep?’ Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 68 ‘No. I mean the people who know what to do without being told – the people who act with intelligence, independence, courage, and a strong sense of ethics. I’m interested in what separates exemplary followers from those who perpetuate the negative stereotypes. I believe the value of followers to any organization is enormous.” Let’s get this out of the way right now: follower is not a bad word. The Cambridge English dictionary defines follower as someone who has a great interest in something or someone who supports, admires, or believes in a particular person, group, or idea. In your role as a first-line supervisor, you should have a great interest in, support, and believe in the mission of your department. Great leaders do this, as do great followers. Believing in your law enforcement mission and supporting it is why, I hope, you joined this honorable profession. Kelley realized most work, in any organization, is done by people in their followership role. He stated, “Organizations stand or fall partly on the basis of how well their leaders lead, but partly also on the basis of how well their followers follow.”25 They do so while carrying out the vision or mission given to them by their leader. No matter how high you rise in your organization, you will have a boss. We all answer to someone. Maybe you work for a great boss, but what if you don’t? Maybe your team is awesome, but what if they aren’t? This chapter, like most of the others, is about increasing your self-awareness. Often the problem, at least partially, is not with your boss or those you lead; it is with you. If you have complaints about your boss, or if you always feel like the problem is with everyone you lead, it might be time to look in the mirror. The Followership Model How do you follow? You’ve heard the best leaders lead by example. Those you lead, who are supposed to follow you, pay attention to how you follow your boss. You, in your followership role, set the example for how your own people should follow you as a leader. Dr. Kelley created a model that groups followers into one of five styles of follower.26 The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 69 His model is based on two broad dimensions, each one having a range from one extreme to another. The first dimension concerns critical thinking. On the high end of the critical thinking scale are those who are independent, critical thinkers; on the low end are the dependent, uncritical thinkers. The best followers think for themselves. They offer constructive feedback, advice, and solutions to their boss. The worst followers need to be told what to do before they do anything. Kelley’s second dimension is about engagement. On the high end of the engagement scale are active followers, whereas on the low end are passive followers. The best followers take initiative and are selfstarters. Passive followers need constant supervision, do not take any initiative, and often dodge responsibility. I’ve modified Dr. Kelley’s twodimensional taxonomy below. By the way, “taxonomy” is just a fancy way of saying we are categorizing followers based on the two dimensions of engagement and critical thinking. For engagement, rate yourself on a scale of one to ten, with one being not engaged at all, and ten being fully engaged. For critical thinking, rate yourself with a one representing no critical thinking at all and a ten being a highly critical thinker (always analyzing, ever evaluating, constantly contemplating). If you have complaints about your boss, or if you always feel like the problem is with everyone you lead, it might be time to look in the mirror. Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 70 Based on these two dimensions, Kelley suggested there are five different styles of follower. 1. Alienated followers (cynics): high thinking, low engagement. They are independent critical thinkers who constantly point out all the negative aspects of the organization. They are the organizational terrorists who like to incite fear and rebellion through verbal remarks, social media posts, and emails. They are seen by the leader and many other non-alienated followers as cynical, adversarial, and negative. They are like festering wounds constantly spewing pus and other nastiness over anyone who will come close to them. (Thanks to Bill Meeks for the festering wounds imagery.) The alienated follower will often infect others with their negativity and cynicism. Robert Sutton describes this concept beautifully in his The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 71 book The No-Asshole Rule. He calls it Asshole Poisoning. I just love that phrase. Here is the interesting thing about alienated followers: they don’t see themselves as negative or cynical. Their self-image is quite different. They consider themselves martyrs and rebels. They are the “good guys” fighting against the tyranny of the evil organization. The question is, how did they become part of our organization? Who hired these guys? Chances are, they didn’t start off this way. Like the rest of us, they became a cop (or dispatcher, deputy, agent, or corrections officer) to make a difference and help people. They, most likely, graduated the academy with a bright flame coming out of their rear ends. They wanted to drive fast and chase bad guys. But then, something happened to them in their career where they felt wronged by their organization. Maybe they didn’t get the assignment they wanted, or were passed over for promotion, or got hurt on the job and didn’t get compensated properly. Something happened to them, and they held the organization responsible. Real or imagined, there was a leadership failure that drove them from being engaged and active in the mission of their organization to a point where they would no longer give their best efforts. They still remain critical thinkers, but they no longer believe in the mission. 2. Passive followers (sheep): low thinking, low engagement. Sheep lack any qualities of an exemplary follower. They have no commitment or engagement, lack any initiative or responsibility, and rely on the leader to do all the thinking for them. Passive followers They are like festering wounds constantly spewing pus and other nastiness over anyone who will come close to them. Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 72 require constant direction and supervision. Leaders often see them as incompetent and lazy. In some cases, passive followers adopt this style to cope with a leader who expects his followers to act this way (not thinking and only doing what they are told). Other times they reflect a hiring failure by the organization. Somehow, they slipped through but should never have been hired. 3. Conformist followers (suck-ups): low thinking, high engagement. They are your “yes” person as they believe and are active in the organizational values and leader’s mission but do not apply much thought to situations. They follow orders and suggestions from their leader without questions. Suck-ups often were once exemplary followers who also experienced a leadership failure. Somewhere in their career, they worked for an authoritarian boss who, through their rigid style, drove the critical thinking out of them. These followers are often found in organizations with highly rigid command and control type cultures. They have adopted the, “Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die,” mentality.27 Many leaders say they don’t want ass-kissers working for them, but my experience has proven otherwise. I’ve seen too many leaders surround themselves with “yes” men (and women). The problem, as Barry Rand, former executive vice president of Xerox and chief executive of Avis Rent-a-Car, once said, “If you have a yes man working for you, one of you is redundant.” 4. Pragmatist followers (survivors): middle thinking, middle engagement. They are rarely committed to the leader’s goals and are your mediocre performers. They do not want to stick out or be noticed. They tend to play it safe rather than take any risk. Survivors are like chameleons because they will shift to match the style their boss looks for, knowing their boss will eventually move on. If they have an autocratic leader, they will act as a conformist follower. If they work for a leader who inspires challenge, they will rise to the occasion, but only after ensuring that is what their leader really wants. The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 73 Survivors are flexible. They are dialed into the radio station WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Because of this self-serving interest, they are usually masters of the policies and rules, knowing exactly what they can get away with or be held accountable to. 5. Exemplary followers (superstars): high thinking, high engagement. Exemplary followers are the foundation of a successful organization. They are consistent, innovative, and dedicated. They collaborate with their leader to achieve organizational success. These are your loyal “no sirs” in that they will respectfully challenge the leader when they feel she is making a mistake. Unlike the cynics, who only point out problems, the exemplary follower points out problems but will also offer solutions. Exemplary followers apply their best efforts, going far beyond the minimum requirements. Other people see them as great coworkers, as they are courageous, honest, and credible. These superstars will seek out the knowledge and training to build the necessary skills in areas where they lack competence. What Is Your Followership Style? What is your followership style? My educated guess is you see yourself as an exemplary follower. I have presented this material to well over one thousand people. I’ve only had two people, yes two, openly admit they were not exemplary followers. It’s funny how we all see ourselves as exemplary, but we all know someone who is a cynic, sheep, survivor, or suck-up. The math just doesn’t add up because we are not honest with ourselves. We certainly want others, especially our It’s funny how we all see ourselves as exemplary, but we all know someone who is a cynic, sheep, survivor, or suck-up. Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 74 boss, to see us as a superstar. Maybe you, my dear reader, are different, but if I am truly honest with myself and look back over my career, I’ve spent some time outside the superstar style. I’ve reacted to bad bosses by becoming a cynic. I’ve found myself in survivor mode. I’ve been guilty of listening to WIIFM. It has taken me time to realize and recognize these transitions, but each time I do my best to come back to the exemplary fold. We all want to be superstars, we all want to be recognized as such, but any organization has a blend of all styles. Ask yourself again (and if you are really brave, ask your boss), “What type of follower am I?” Your followership style can change from day to day, sometimes several times each day. When you feel that you are straying from superstar mode, ask yourself why you joined our noble profession in the first place? You joined to make a difference. You had a flame coming out your rear end because you wanted to be a superhero and catch bad guys. You started out as the sheepdog to protect the meek and the weak from those who would prey on them. Somewhere, a leader failed you, your organization failed you, or at least that’s how you see it. What can you do to refocus, reenergize, and reignite that flame? What Types of Followers Do You Lead? As we transition from looking in the mirror at our own followership style, we realize we also have a responsibility to look at the followership style of those we lead. Take some time to evaluate the style of your followers. Chances are, they are not all superstars. What can you do to move each one towards the superstar quadrant? Here are a few suggestions for leading each style of follower. Cynics. They are like a mighty lion with a thorn stuck in their paw. All their effort is on complaining about the pain caused to them by the organization. The thorn represents an obstacle, an impediment to their engagement. You need to figure out what their issue is and how to remove the thorn from their paw. To do this, you will need to build a relationship of trust with them, and they will tell you. Give them The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 75 a problem or project to do that requires them to take their negative energy and refocus it on constructive problem solving (remember: they are critical thinkers). Recognize and reward their efforts to slowly move them back towards organizational engagement. Sheep. The good news is that sheep have nowhere to go but up. Your goal is to move them from passively waiting for direction to critically thinking on their own. This will require building trust. Give them tasks to complete and hold them accountable. Be on the lookout when they show any engagement in their duties. When they do, recognize it with something like, “Hey, I like the way you handled that,” or “I saw the way you…I’d like to see you do that more often.” Ask them questions and then give them a little recognition when they give a thoughtful answer. Some sheep appear lazy and incompetent because they are. Sometimes a courageous conversation is needed (see chapter 8) with them that requires them to show some minimally accepted improvement or leave (your unit, or maybe the organization). Don’t jump to this conversation too early. You must try the different leadership tools on your belt and run through the LEAD ME? F.U.! model (see chapter 7) a few times first. Survivors. Having an ambiguous image means survivors tend to go with the flow. The good news is, if you are truly seen as a superstar follower yourself, they will tend to model your behavior. Inspire them with your example and reward them when they show superstar traits. If they lean towards the cynic style, determine the root cause of their problem. Often their issue was caused by a former leader. Show them you are not that type of leader by your daily words, behavior, and actions. Suck-ups. People in this style are usually there for one of two reasons. The first possibility is they were formerly a superstar who tried to be a loyal “no sir” and got hammered by a leader who did not want to hear anything but compliance. As a result, they have learned to just agree with their boss, so they don’t get the Whack-a-Mole treatment. (For my readers who don’t know, Whack-a-Mole was a popular arcade game involving a large box with five holes in it. A mole would pop up from one of the holes, and the player, armed with a large mallet, had to knock the mole on the head, causing it to go back down in the hole. Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 76 Each time the mole popped its head up, it was supposed to get knocked down.) The other reason is they have learned to be an ass kisser to get ahead in the organization. You need to build trust and ensure them that not only do you encourage them to speak up and voice their opinion, but you expect it. When they do engage and speak up, do NOT dismiss their opinion, even if you disagree with them. Acknowledge them by saying something like, “That’s a great point, Jim, I appreciate you bringing it to my attention,” or “I disagree with you, Jim, but I really appreciate your thought on the issue.” If they are a brown-noser, discourage it. “Jim, I don’t need flattery right now; I want your honest opinion.” Superstars. Like all other styles, you need to establish trust with superstars. Leaders often spend the majority of their time on the other “problem” styles and neglect this group. Recognize their engagement and critical thinking. Encourage them to speak up and show your appreciation when they do. They are the role models for the rest of your unit. The traits of the superstar follower are the same traits required to be a great leader. Some, but not all superstars, will be interested in formal leadership roles. If they are, offer to mentor them. Coach them and give them some extra responsibilities to help them grow and prepare for a future leadership role. A great way to develop your own leadership skills is to teach someone else. You will both benefit from the experience, and you will fulfill a key leadership competency, developing individuals for future service. Using Followership to Lead Your Boss I’ve heard many people say, “My boss sucks. How can I fix him?” The answer, if you have not already figured it out, is nothing. You can’t fix your boss. You can, however, lead him. How do you do that? You lead him by being an exemplary follower. Yes, it will be hard to respectfully challenge your boss when you know she is wrong. Yes, it will be difficult not to become cynical and start talking bad about him behind his back. Yes, it will be challenging to keep sticking your head up every time it gets whacked. Stay the course and continue to be a superstar. The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 77 Remember, your people watch everything you do. They watch to see how you interact with your boss. They know what your followership style is. I once knew a frustrated sergeant who ran a midnight shift. He constantly complained that his people were lazy, negative, and said it was impossible to motivate them. He was right. He was also the most alienated and cynical follower I’ve ever seen. His people actually admired him. They saw how he behaved and became little versions of him. He created an entire unit of cynics and then didn’t understand why they weren’t productive and engaged. If you expect respect from those you lead, you need to earn it. Lead by example, show respect to your boss (even if he is an asshole), and model the behavior you want to see from those you lead. If you’ve been leading a group for a while and you find yourself constantly complaining about them, how they are an unmotivated bunch of assholes, then maybe it’s time to take a good look in the mirror. Maybe, just maybe, you are the King of the Assholes. Clarity from Your Boss It’s important to get to know your boss. Ideally, your supervisor will have a conversation with you where she sets clear goals and expectations for you. If this happens, consider yourself fortunate; you might be working for a good leader. You will soon have a similar conversation with those you lead, so pay attention, take notes, and ask questions. If your boss does not initiate this conversation, fear not, you will. Unfortunately, in the law enforcement world, this is normal. Meet with your boss as soon as possible. Let her know that you want to meet to be clear on what expectations she has of you in your new role. I encourage you to do this even if you’ve been working for your boss for quite some time. Do you know, exactly, what their expectations are for you? Ideally, this is done before you do the same thing with your followers. What does the organization expect of you, and what does your boss expect of you? Expectations define what you need to do to be successful. A misunderstanding or misalignment of expectations is the fastest route to frustration and failure with your boss. Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 78 Meeting with your boss is also an opportunity to get to know him and start building a relationship with him. Leadership is the process of influencing human behavior. This is where the process begins with your boss. There will come a time where you will want to influence your boss. You will have a greater chance if you have a good relationship with him. How do you do this? I’m glad you asked. Building a relationship with your boss and getting clear expectations involves asking questions. How does she like to communicate? Does she prefer emails, text messages, or face to face communication? Another question to ask is what decisions you can make on your own and what decisions need to be run past your boss. Finally, ask your boss what you can do to be more productive, efficient, and successful. What if My Boss Is a Micromanager? Micromanaging comes down to two issues: trust and competence. Are you competent in all areas of your job? If you are, your boss shouldn’t have to look over your shoulder, correcting everything you do. The micromanaging problem occurs when your boss doesn’t rate your competence the same way you do. You feel competent, but your boss doesn’t see it that way. We now have a perception problem where you believe you’re being micromanaged. Your boss, on the other hand, believes that you’re not performing your duties to his expectations, so he has to be a little more “hands-on” with you. He doesn’t see this as micromanaging. His opinion is quite the opposite. By being a little more “involved” with you, he’s exercising good leadership, right? Most people react to a micromanager with resistance. They fight the boss on every issue to justify their position. They meet force with force. To “fix” the micromanaging boss, you need to build trust. How do you build trust? You embrace their critiques and criticism. You become a jiujitsu master and use their own force against them. Does your boss want a daily report of your squad’s activities? Awesome! Send him the most detailed report ever. The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 79 Put your ego aside and do things the way they want them done. Yes, this will be frustrating for a while, but your efforts will pay off. Eventually, your boss will see that you’re doing things the way she wants them done. When this happens, she will begin to see you as competent and trust that you will do things the same way in the future. Remember, you have one boss, but she has several direct reports. Once she trusts you to do things the “right” way, she’ll start giving you more freedom and focus her micromanaging lens elsewhere. e “Hey, Sarge, don’t be a dumbass.” “Okay, Paul, I want to go in and grab the guy, but you must see a problem with my plan. What are you thinking?” “Eddie,” Paul said, “the townhouse is not poured on a slab, it’s got a basement, so we are dealing with three levels. I walked around back and confirmed the basement. While I was back there, I saw our bad guy.” “Excellent. We know he’s in there. Time to get him,” I interrupted. “Yeah, but I saw another dude inside, so we know it is at least two of them in there. Including you and me, we’ve only got four guys to make entry. It’s too much house for four guys; I don’t like those numbers. SWAT is working, let’s call them to make the entry.” “By the time they carb up, apply all their tactical hair gel, and make entry, we won’t be getting off early.” As a hostage negotiator, I took every opportunity to make fun of SWAT, especially since Paul used to be one of them. He knew it was all in jest. I knew most of the guys on that team and truly had nothing but respect for them. I didn’t want to wait for SWAT; I didn’t want them to get the glory of grabbing our bad guy. My ego was clouding my judgment, and now Paul was questioning my decision. The problem was, he was right. Not only was he right, but he had made his case in such an exemplary manner that I couldn’t help but agree. He could have called me out on our radio channel; nobody had access to it but us. Instead, he met with me in private. He could have just complained about the problem by Leader Armor for Law Enforcement 80 telling me I was being stupid and was, most likely, about to get someone killed. Instead, he pointed out several problems with my plan and then offered a solution: call SWAT. They were better trained and equipped for the problem at hand. If the bad guy had been mobile, in a car, SAT was the way to go, but since he was inside a house, SWAT were the experts to call. I announced, on our channel, “Hey, after talking with Paul, we are going to have SWAT make entry so get comfortable.” SWAT did make entry safely and without incident. Our bad guy was inside, along with three of his friends. Two handguns—one from the robbery—and one long gun were also located inside. If the four of us had made entry, it could have gone badly, very badly. I felt like a rookie again. Damn it, I hate it when Paul is right. You now know how to look in the mirror and evaluate your own followership style. You know how to lead your boss by being an exemplary follower. It’s time to lead others as you climb up the mountain to success. It’s time to talk about how you will do that in a competent and ethical way. The F-Word; Did You Just Call Me a F… ? 81 Chapter 4: Lessons Learned Followership is not a bad word. Followership is part of leadership. Everyone has a boss; therefore, being a good follower is part of being a good leader. The people you lead pay attention to the way you follow your boss. Want your people to respect you? Show respect for your boss. Your followership style can change with each situation.

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